University nuclear physics laboratories, commissioned 1959 and built 1963-1971, by Philip Dowson of Ove Arup and Partners.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport disagreed with Historic England’s recommendation for this case. For further information please contact the Historic England Listing Group.

The Science Area, on the north-east fringe of Oxford, developed in the 1860s after the university had instituted an Honour School in Natural Science in 1850. At first buildings were annexes of the University Museum on Parks Road, but later gained independence.

In 1956 the nuclear physicist Denys Wilkinson had applied to the DSIR (Department for Scientific and Industrial Research) for funds to purchase a tandem accelerator. On his appointment as Chair of Experimental Physics in Oxford, he stressed the importance of a research base at the University rather than at Harwell, establishing Oxford in 1959 as a major centre for university-based nuclear research.

The Nuclear Physics Laboratories were commissioned that year from Ove Arup and Partners with Philip Dowson as architect in charge. DSIR funding was agreed in 1961, allowing construction to begin in 1963 on the section housing the tandem accelerator and laboratories, which were operational by 1964-5. This phase included a flat for Wilkinson, enabling him to live on site and dispel concerns that there was a risk placing nuclear laboratories in the centre of Oxford. The main building followed when University funding was secured in 1964. The first three phases were completed by 1971 leaving the building substantially as it is today; a final intended quadrangle was never built. The accelerators were de-commissioned in the 1980s and the building has been adapted to meet current demands. A photograph labelled 'top of view of the Oxford Folded Tandem' records the 10MV Van de Graaff accelerator which operated in the tower from 1965. In 2002 the laboratories were named the Denys Wilkinson Building after their founder.

[Sir] Philip Dowson (1924-2014) subsequently co-founded Arup Associates, the first and arguably most important inter-disciplinary practice combining the services of architects, engineers, quantity surveyors and acousticians within a single unit. Under his guidance it developed a distinctive approach to design, based on the rational, even scientific conditions of function, construction technique and the character of materials. The Denys Wilkinson Building is an early work by a practice which was to become one of Britain's leading designers of factory and office buildings in the 1960s and 1970s. Dowson is recognised as one of the most distinguished British architects of the later C20 and early C21, being knighted in 1980, elected RA in 1981, and elected President of the Royal Academy in 1993.

The design of the laboratories followed on from those Dowson had designed with Arup at Hemel Hempstead, Duxford and Welwyn Garden City, the last of these set on a podium. The idiom established in Oxford was repeated at the Mining and Mineral Engineering and Physical Metallurgy Building in Birmingham (1963-6) and at the New Museums site in Cambridge (1964-71). The functional requirements determined the shape of the building almost completely. The shadows thrown by the curvature of the tower, the section of the pre-cast concrete panels and the transparency of the glazed end sections were designed to reduce the apparent mass of the tower. The strongly expressed post and lintel frame is typical of Dowson's style of this period, seen also in his Fry and Vaughan Buildings for Somerville College. It is also a dramatic expression of the New Vision for a future founded on a scientific and technological revolution envisaged by Harold Wilson in his 'white heat of technology' speech of 1963.

As a highly visible new venture in both architectural and research terms in Oxford, the building inevitably received a mixed response. While the scheme was praised by both Wilkinson and the Royal Fine Arts Commission, and seen as representing Oxford’s emergence as a leading centre of nuclear physics research in Europe, others, including Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, who was notably uncomfortable with Brutalist buildings, were critical of its architectural presence on the streetscape.

The building was designed for partial flexibility, and fulfilled its original brief well, but the presence of radiation limited the development of a fully flexible plan realised by Dowson and Arup Associates elsewhere.

The interior is fitted out as offices, research and teaching spaces that include the Dennis Sciama Lecture Theatre, workshops, a canteen and a loading bay in the basement. Most of the building has been refitted round the existing service cores, but cedar panelling, door frames and finishes in the east range and on the bridge at Level 7 indicate the original or an early decorative scheme. The original plant has been removed and the interior void of the vertical accelerator tower reused, providing storage. However the original use of the building is evident in the very thick structural frame and protective screens in the basement levels and in heavy fire doors (painted red) on upper levels.

University nuclear physics laboratories, commissioned 1959 and built 1963-71, by Philip Dowson of Ove Arup and Partners to house a tandem accelerator and associated research and teaching facilities and workshops.

MATERIALS AND STRUCTURE: a post and lintel construction concrete frame and in-situ reinforced concrete tower. The podium is a juxtaposition of smoothly finished, shutter-marked concrete and blocks of a coarser concrete and Portland stone aggregate separated by wide exposed joints. Projecting upper floors have predominantly glazed walls (the glazed cladding and fenestration are being replaced as part of an ongoing agreed project), supported on a pre-cast concrete post and lintel frame where cantilevered concrete beams project over external galleries. Floor surfaces and walkways are paved in red brick. All glazed panels and windows are being replaced in an agreed ongoing programme of improvements, on the main elevations closely matching the original aesthetic.

PLAN: the principal structural and visual element of the building is the raking tower designed to house the vertical Van de Graaff accelerator. It rises from a podium which housed the second accelerator, provides access via stairs to the main entrance at first floor level and wraps round the rear of the building. Behind the frontage are two abutting but offset enclosed courtyard complexes, set back from the road. Laboratories were arranged so that they were naturally-lit and cross-ventilated; offices, and workshops below, lit by clerestory glazing, were set round courtyards.

The building is laid out on seven main levels, including two basement floors, where the second accelerator was housed. The building is entered from an external raised walkway at podium level that is internally Level Four. Professor Wilkinson's flat occupied part of the sixth and seventh levels.

EXTERIOR: the building is laid out and detailed according to a very precise structural regime and aesthetic that has become a hallmark of Arup Associates’ work. Intersecting upper floor blocks project over a podium that houses the lower floors and basements. The continuous podium has a coarsely textured, chamfered base with wide incised joints that contrast with the finely grained, shutter-marked treatment above. Continuous, horizontal, window units in black anodised metal wrap round the corners. Recessed, lower windows have smooth chamfered concrete framed architraves. A broad flight of stairs rises to a walkway at entrance level and marked out in red brick paving, that passes under the deep overhang of the upper storeys. Beside the stairs, steps descend between shutter-marked concrete bastions to the basement entrance.

Upper floors are predominantly glazed, in panels of grey, reflective glass, applied to the frame. The uppermost floors project on a narrow concrete slab that is supported on deep, exposed joists, the storeys marked by a slightly recessed, narrow floor slab. Reflecting the podium, the base of the upper blocks, parapets of linking covered walkways and bridges that project from them are in coarsely marked concrete, while upper levels are of finer textured, shutter-marked concrete.

The most prominent element both visually and functionally is the fan-shaped tower, executed in in-situ reinforced concrete, built to house the vertical accelerator. It comprises a very expressive concrete sheath which is circular on plan at the base but rectangular at the top, with entasis in between. The funnel-like tower has deeply-ribbed flaring sides that frame raked upper glazed units set above a recessed flush concrete panel. The effect is reminiscent of the work of the contemporary potter, Hans Coper.

Laboratories and offices facing inner courtyards have fully glazed walls (glazed cladding and fenestration being replaced); the floor below lit by clerestory glazing at courtyard ground level. Courtyards are laid out as paved terraces reached by concrete steps.

Later C20 and C21 stairs*, fire escapes*, lift shafts*, plant and research facilities mounted on the roof* are not of special interest.

The interior was always intended to be flexibly planned and adaptable to changing needs. Whilst surviving elements of the interior and its decorative scheme are of some note, denoting its original use, aside from the essential structure, interior fixtures*, fittings* and decorations* are not of special interest.

* Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that these aforementioned features are not of special architectural or historic interest.